


A Binary Star System

by everheartings



Series: Asterism [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Magical Realism, space, star people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3520421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everheartings/pseuds/everheartings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A binary system - when two objects in space orbit around a single center of mass.<br/>(I could not let go of you if I tried.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Shira (theydieholdinghands) my lovely friend and sometimes beta. They were feeling a bit down so I thought that finishing up my original gift to them might help a little bit. Hopefully it can make you smile!

Enjolras is quiet (he needs time to grow into himself). The streets around him are loud enough to fill up the empty space where his voice should be, the teeming masses so brightly colored that he can afford to be a little bit flat and grey. Stars should shine, but Enjolras doesn’t. With his feet locked upon the ground and his head in the void, he doesn’t have the energy.

He slips his hands into his pockets and his fingers brush against something square. He pulls it from his pocket—a pack of cigarette. It sits in his hand, a dead thing. They’re Grantaire’s. The coat too. The coat and the shirt and the jeans and the shoes—all Grantaire’s ( _You can’t keep wearing Éponine’s shorts, you look ridiculous_ ). Enjolras’ throat tightens and there’s too much space in his chest. Humans don’t have molten cores like stars do. Enjolras slips the cigarettes back in the pocket, careful not to crush the corners.

(“What is a heart?”Enjolras had whispered on one those first days, when his world consisted of white hospital walls, plastic chairs, and Grantaire sleeping through half the day. Grantaire had tried to explain, words halting and thick on medication. “It’s, well, it’s in your chest and it keeps you alive. Makes you feel things.” Enjolras didn’t—doesn’t—understand.)

Night begins to closes in, stars blinking into view. It’s strange how they only can be seen in the dark (he can hear them through the day. They tug at him, pulling him forward, to where he doesn’t know). He wanders into a park and finds a bench. It’s hard and cold and wooden. Enjolras holds Grantaire’s coat tighter around him and shuts his eyes. He can see the shadow of Grantaire burned beneath the lids (he’d been sleeping so peacefully when Enjolras left. He’d almost reached out to touch Grantaire’s cheek, but the moonlight had illuminated the mottled skin. Enjolras had pulled his hand back, fingers squeezing into a shaking fist). With an empty chest and ringing ears, he tries to sleep.

 

Enjolras is shaken awake by a hand on his shoulder. He blinks into half-wakefulness. His lips part and the name _Grantaire_ rises unbidden to his lips—but wait, no that’s not right (there’s no Grantaire here). It’s an unfamiliar face, dark hair falling in curls across the man’s forehead.

“Come with me,” he says, and Enjolras does. The man introduces himself as Courfeyrac and the name seems familiar, somehow (Grantaire has friends, acquaintances, linked together like a web of string. Enjolras could never keep track of them all, the names drowned out by the stars whispering in his head). Enjolras keeps his head down and focuses on the sidewalk as they walk. It takes everything he has not to run after the stars calling his name. When they end up at an apartment complex, he cannot recall the path they took to get there.

It takes two flights of stairs and a short hallway to get to Courfeyrac’s apartment. Courfeyrac fumbles with the keys, the flickering bulbs of the hallway too dim to give much light. Everything looks blurred, soft around the edges. Was it the darkness or the sleep that made it so? Enjolras does not know, does not care. He wraps his fingers around the end of Grantaire’s coat and tries not to breath (there is stardust in his lungs, waiting to drift past his parted lips).

Finally, finally, does Courfeyrac manage to unlock the door and let them into the apartment. It’s large, larger than Grantaire’s, but feels colder. There are no telescopes resting in the corners. Enjolras steps inside and stands in the hall, unsure of what to do.

“You can sit,” Courfeyrac says, gesturing to the living room. There’s a smile on his face (Enjolras thinks of Grantaire holding a mug of coffee, smiling to himself as he leaned over star charts. Enjolras had found himself smiling too, the curved lips and bared teeth still an unfamiliar feeling).

Enjolras edges into the living room. He sits on the couch, the cushions giving beneath his weight, and he looks at his knees.

Courfeyrac’s voice drifts out from the hall. “You’re not the first roommate I’ve picked up off the streets. If you’re wondering.”

Enjolras hadn’t been. He lets himself fall to the side, the fabric of the couch rough against his cheek (it’s not the right shape, the couch, doesn’t give the right way. It’s unfamiliar). He slips his hand over his mouth and breathes through the gaps in his fingers, catching stardust in his open palm.

Courfeyrac walks into the living room with an armful of blankets.  He sets them on the back of the couch. His hand comes to rest on Enjolras’ shoulder, the touch soft against Enjolras’ skin. There’s tension there, in the sloping curve, but Enjolras doesn’t shrug the hand off (“Don’t touch me,” he wishes to say, “I’ll only burn you.” But he doesn’t. He’s made his mistakes).

“What are you doing?” Courfeyrac asks. His fingers wrap lightly around Enjolras’ wrist and pull it away.  Stardust spills out onto the couch.

( _What are you doing out here?_ Grantaire had said.) Enjolras’ mind slips back to morning skies and burnt hands— _all his doing, all his fault_ —and a cold cup of coffee sitting on the table. He tenses, everything growing still, all except for the hollow beating of his heart and the whispers in his ears. The tension bleeds out into the room, the silence too taut to be broken with ease. It seems that’s all he’s good for now, creating space for silence. Finally, Enjolras manages to crack open his jaw and let words tumble past his teeth.

“I’m waiting to collapse in on myself.”

(It feels like his core has been ripped from his chest. He should have fallen inwards by now, no elements left to create or deconstruct, but yet he still finds stardust spread across his knees. That’s what this feeling is, it _has_ to be—so why is he still here?)

Enjolras turns away, hands fisting up in his hair (there’s so much he has to say— _so much_ , but he just can’t articulate, tongue tripping over itself and hands grasping for knowledge that is just out of reach. How do you fix something you did not mean to break?). In his ears, the stars are calling his name, tugging at his ribs. He wants to go to them, wants to stretch out his hand and consume them whole, but Grantaire’s cigarettes are still in his pocket, weighing him down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on my writing style at the end, if anyone is interested.

Grantaire drinks, but that is nothing new. He sits on his couch, legs pulled up close to his chest and chin pressing into the tops of his knees. One hand is wrapped around a bottle of wine and the other is flat against the couch cushions. He picks stardust from the fabric. It’s all he has left of Enjolras.

Courfeyrac had called the hour before, when the sky was still dark. “Hey,” he’d whispered over the phone, “I found him. He’s sleeping on the couch.”  Grantaire said nothing, just looked out the window at the night sky (the stars would be fading soon, swallowed up by the rising sun). He hadn’t moved since he’d seen the note on the fridge.

There was a cough, all static in Grantaire’s ear. “Do you want me to bring him over tomorrow?” Courfeyrac had asked.

Grantaire turned his face away from the window. “No,” he said, “It’s fine.”

Only once Courfeyrac had hung up the phone did Grantaire force himself up from the couch. Only then did he pull out a bottle of wine and collapse upon the couch again (his fingers searched for stardust. If he closed his eyes and imagined, the dust upon his fingers might be a substitute for a kiss).

The next week, Grantaire gets a job working in a warehouse, moving boxes with a fork lift. His mind goes numb when he works, thoughts wiped clean. That’s what he wants, what he needs. Working keeps him away from the crowds that walk the street—keeps him from searching for Enjolras in every face. Because though he tries, he cannot stop searching. He cannot let Enjolras go.

(Grantaire knows that he cannot keep a fallen star forever. _Catching_ and _holding_ is not the same thing as ownership, and just because he carries burns upon his arms does mean he can look upon Enjolras and think _mine_. Fallen stars are human in shape only, their minds turned out to the stretch of space and the music they can hear there. A mortal hand is incapable of holding one for long—two can do it, but one? They’ll be burned alive. But that does not mean Grantaire does not wish to try.)

 

“He misses you,” Jehan says over drinks, the dim light of the bar making the stardust on his cheeks shine. “That’s what Courfeyrac told me.”

Grantaire shrugs and stares down into his glass. He remembers Enjolras’ hand reaching out to touch him, then flinching away ( _It’s okay_ , Grantaire thinks, _I understand_. No one could want him, now or ever). It’s been a month since Grantaire saw Enjolras last.

Jehan’s hand slides across the counter and comes to rest upon the curve of Grantaire’s arm. “Maybe you should go and see him,” Jehan says, his voice quiet and careful. “Talk to him.”

Grantaire can already imagine how that would go (shaking hands and stardust teeth, Enjolras’ face turned away to hide—what is it? Fear or disgust? Does it really matter?—and _heartbreak, heartbreak_ pouring from his lips. Grantaire could not take it). He shakes his head and downs his drink.

“He left,” Grantaire says, setting his empty glass aside. “For a reason.” (He cannot stand me, he cannot love me.) He can hear Jehan’s sigh, feel it in the tightening of Jehan’s fingers upon his arm. Little Jehan, so full up with love and poetry that he cannot see the ugliness plain across Grantaire’s face.

“R, all you have are speculations—”

Grantaire laughs, a single cold, harsh bark. “Go home, Jehan. The light doesn’t suit you here.” (Go home to your bed filled with your lovers, to your stardust sheets)

Jehan shakes his head. “If that is what you want.” He pushes his stool back and stretches his arms above his head. “You’re staying here, I trust?” he asks. Grantaire nods, already working his way through a second drink. He’s still got some time and money left to spare.

The hours slip by like whiskey across his tongue. He’s so focused on his drink (lift glass, drink, set down, refill, repeat) that he doesn’t hear the sound of someone sliding onto the barstool next to him. Only when stardust drifts down from above, falling across his fingers does he look up and see him—Enjolras. The sight of him strikes Grantaire to the bones.

“Sorry,” Enjolras says, “For leaving.” The words are soft, spoken close to Grantaire’s ear. The feeling of warm breath and stardust raise goose bumps across Grantaire’s skin.

Grantaire could say many things to this (“I know, I read your note,” or “Don’t worry about it, it was only a matter of time,” or “I think I might love you”), but eventually he settles on a shrug. His gaze fall to Enjolras’ hands, a crushed pack of cigarettes resting between his tapping fingers.

Enjolras clears his throat. He looks at Grantaire and his hands curl around the cigarettes. His fingers brush at the box’s soft corners. “It wasn’t because of you,” Enjolras says.

When Grantaire speaks his voice is rough, as if each word is a struggle. “You don’t have to lie to spare my feelings.” (He cannot fathom anything else.)

And there, in Enjolras’ jaw in a tension, the slight up-curl of his lips (there is emotion, working itself out on his face. He’s becoming more human each day, even as the stars sing in his ears). “I’m not,” he says. “I would never.”

“Then why?”

And the question slips out from Grantaire’s lips before he can stop it, the alcohol loosening his tongue (or maybe it’s just the stardust making him hazy). He wants to take it back as soon as it’s free. His stomach rolls and his hands tighten their grip on his glass, his only anchor.

Enjolras sits stiffly beside him, his head downturned and his eyes running, running, across the table. It’s as if he’s reading the grain of the wood, searching for words in the thin lacquered lines. “I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice is quiet, just barely audible over the clinking of glasses and the muffled sound of the TV set. “Not again,” Enjolras says. “Not like…” He looks down to the exposed skin of Grantaire’s hands, the burns curling across his fingers and down his wrists.

Grantaire can’t take it, the heat of Enjolras’ gaze sliding across his skin (he thinks it might consume him). Tension leaks down his spine, his skin tightening around his bones. Grantaire knows he is holding a star in his hands, knows that he’s going to get burned. He should drop it, push it away, but he has never been good at denying himself things.

He slides his hand across the bar, placing a hand over Enjolras’.  His fingers curl around Enjolras’ fingers, the pack of cigarettes pressing up into Grantaire’s palm. He keeps his eyes forward, and Enjolras keeps his hand stiff. They do not speak, not when Enjolras threads his finger through Grantaire’s, not when they walk back to Grantaire’s apartment. Not when they fall into bed and to sleep, Enjolras breathing stardust across the bare expanse of Grantaire’s chest. They have no need for words.

(They do not say, “I love you,” but Grantaire knows, in time, it will come.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been a year since I last wrote any fanfic, and my style has changed a lot. It comes with being a writing major, and writing like at least five or six stories a year. Things change. You learn and grow.  
> So I apologize if my style/characterization is inconsistent. Coming back to this made me realize how much I've grown in the past year, in terms of both writing style (goodbye parenthesis!) and also just narrative structure--where is my conflict, my scenes, my establishment of setting????? You could say this series, in hindsight is rather...nebulous in those respects (badum tiss).  
> That said, I did my best to remain consistent with the rest of the stories in this series and stay true to the characters I had portrayed. Hopefully I did a decent job!


End file.
